


all the gates have closed

by mercutioes



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Oaths & Vows, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 05:03:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20371144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercutioes/pseuds/mercutioes
Summary: hadrian swears an oath of fealty





	all the gates have closed

**Author's Note:**

> a certain cast member tweeted about having an oath of fealty written out for hadrian to give to samot and that the opportunity never came up and i screamed into the night
> 
> the text of the oath is a modified and cobbled together version of a couple of 10th century anglo-saxon oaths of fealty
> 
> title from "god made man" by young the giant

“Swear it again,” demands Samot. He tosses his head with the sense-memory of longer hair, a habit he hasn’t yet managed to break. The scars along his face, his chest, his hands flare slightly, only noticeable for the dimness of the room.

Hadrian swallows. His avoidance had been self-preserving and it had been necessary, but it had also been selfish. He’d known that every moment spent in his lord’s presence would wear away at his resolve like water at a soft, crumbling riverbank, until he found himself on his knees with submission on his lips and in the curve of his spine.

The bank had broken and washed away and here he is, the stone floor unforgiving, head heavy under the weight of Samot’s gaze. The speech had been difficult the first time, out in the relative open, on steady ground and on his feet, but  _ now… _

He knows where this is going. He is stumbling and he is unsubtle but he is not naive. His lord brought him to his own bedchambers, pressed down on his shoulders until his knees bent, looked at him with hunger and longing and disbelief. Hadrian knows that his own expression must be a mirror, he’s wanted for so long.

“My lord—” Hadrian says, voice rasping and unsteady.

Samot stays ramrod straight before him and despite his posture, despite that he is a vision in gold and blue, Hadrian gets the sense that he is a moment away from sagging and bending in two.

“I want to hear it again,” Samot repeats, voice somehow tremulous and severe all at once. “Swear yourself to me.”

Hadrian takes a deep breath, closing his eyes. He swore something similar, once, to the Order of Eternal Princes, and he’s no wordsmith so he’d merely changed them to make them fit. The words are practically seared into his mind from how many times he’s turned them over before finally gathering the courage to speak them. He shudders to feel Samot’s fingers in his hair, thin and elegant but steady.

“By my lord before whom this sanctuary is holy,” Hadrian starts, voice rough, and Samot’s fingers twitch, “I will to you be faithful and true, and love all that you love, and shun all that you shun, according to the world’s law.”

Samot runs nails down the back of his neck, over his shoulder, up to cup his cheek. His palm is surprisingly warm, the starstuff sparking and pulsing. Hadrian’s eyes flutter shut, his breath coming quick and shuddering.

“Oh,” Samot breathes, stepping closer, his boots clicking quietly on the floor. Instinctively, Hadrian sinks lower on his knees, legs spreading so Samot can step between. Hadrian lets his forehead rest on Samot’s clothed hip, pushing closer. “Continue.”

Hadrian’s mind swims, but he obeys.

“Nor will I ever with will or action, through word or deed, do anything which is unpleasing to you —” a gasp as Samot nudges his leg forward, just far enough to brush up against Hadrian’s clothed erection. His hand remains in Hadrian’s hair.

“Do not stop,” Samot murmurs.

“Please, I —”

“Finish it, Hadrian.” He presses his foot forward more insistently. “You will do nothing which is unpleasing to me.” Hadrian takes a deep, shuddering breath.

“On… on condition that you keep me as I deserve,” he manages, pressing his face into Samot’s hip, eyes squeezed shut as he tries not to push forward, “and that you will perform everything as it was in our agreement when I submitted myself to you and chose —”

“And chose my will,” Samot finishes for him, tugging him gently back by the hair so he can examine his upturned face, his parted lips. “Oh, my knight, if only you could see yourself.”

“How long?” Hadrian chokes out, turning his face to try and get Samot’s palm back on his cheek, to press lips to his wrist. “Did you…”

“Since I saw you.” Samot’s smile makes something turn painfully in Hadrian’s chest. “Since you began to trust me.”

“I didn’t know —”

“Hush.” Samot strokes the lines at the corners of Hadrian’s eyes with his thumbs. His eyelids fall shut, breath stuttering out. “Now, I have promised to keep you as you deserve.”

A small, quiet sound escapes Hadrian’s lips without his permission. There’s so much that he wants, so much that he’s never allowed himself to think about, only spilling out through the cracks in dreams. Samot is so beautiful, even wounded and tired and sad and scared, and Hadrian cannot decide if he wants to hold him or bare his throat.

Again, he presses his forehead to Samot’s hip, turning his face to the side. Heat rushes through him to see the way Samot’s loose pants tent slightly, making him hyperaware of his own arousal still pressed against Samot’s boot.

“Can I —” Hadrian’s voice breaks and he has to clear his throat, tentatively reaching up. “Can I take care of you?”

Samot is musky and heady, unfamiliar on his tongue. He’s only ever done this for Rosana before, and it’s different with a man, the shape and taste of him. He worries that he’s not doing a good enough job, how could he  _ think _ to compare with the hundreds of lovers Samot’s had before —

But then he glances up at his lord and Samot is looking at him like he wants to consume him, eyes dark and hooded and red lips parted with pleasure. He wants to squirm under the intensity of that gaze, jaw aching.

“My knight,” Samot sighs, lifting his foot to press the sole of his boot more intentionally against Hadrian’s throbbing cock. It makes Hadrian shudder, groaning around the fullness in his mouth. To be a vessel for his lord’s pleasure, to be kept only to serve him… He presses into Samot’s hands in his hair, eyes fluttering shut in concentration — he wants to take him deeper, fighting against the instinct to close his throat and pull back.

“Mine to keep,” Samot repeats, voice tight like a violin string about to snap, “all mine, my knight, I —  _ oh…” _

He spills down Hadrian’s throat in a rush, taking Hadrian by surprise and forcing him to concentrate on breathing through his nose and not spluttering, swallowing it all until his lord is sated. When Samot pulls back, his lips feel sticky and swollen, sweat beading on his forehead. It’s hard to focus. Samot smiles gently, running his thumb across Hadrian’s lower lip.

“I will give you what you deserve,” he whispers. He guides Hadrian to his feet and over to the bed, moving with dreamlike steps. Samot lays him out on his back, unbuttons Hadrian’s shirt and then settles on his side next to him with an expression that makes the breath leave Hadrian’s chest all at once.

There’s some kind of salve on the bedside table — Samot keeps all kinds of inscrutable lotions for his skin and hair — and it’s cool and slick on Hadrian’s cock when Samot takes him in hand and kisses the groan from his mouth. His hand is steady and perfect and his lord coaxes him to be louder, to be open and honest.

“You promised to be true,” Samot says, swinging a leg up to sit astride one of Hadrian’s thighs, pausing only to work his pants down and off. His lord’s face is flushed, too beautiful for words. “Don’t hide a single thing from me.”

Hadrian cries out as Samot resumes stroking him, planting his feet on the mattress and bucking up. He has to close his eyes against the intensity of Samot’s expression, so he doesn’t see Samot reaching for the salve again until there’s a finger at his entrance, pressing in, and he hasn’t done this before but he trusts Samot, trusts him implicitly with his body and with his pleasure and it’s  _ good _ . It’s good to be full, makes the sensation of Samot’s fingers on his cock all the more acute, gives him something to bear down on when his muscles begin to clench and he clutches at the sheets for something to ground him.

“Ah,  _ ah, please _ ,” Hadrian gasps, “please don’t stop, I’m —”

“I know, my knight, I’ve got you,” Samot soothes.

And he does. When Hadrian falls, Samot catches him.

After, Hadrian holds Samot, his lord’s head pillowed on his chest, long, manicured fingers tracing idle shapes on the swell of Hadrian’s stomach.

“Did you mean it?” Samot whispers after a long, long silence, when their bodies have cooled and the fire in the hearth has burned low.

“Hm?”

“Your oath.”

“Well… I swore it, right?”

Samot laughs and it sounds like it’s caught somewhere in his chest, a struggling animal trying to claw itself free.

“Would you hate me if I asked to hear it again?”

Hadrian feels an answering pang in his own chest that’s only quieted by pulling Samot tighter into his arms.

“If that’s what pleases you, my lord.”


End file.
